13 January 2006

Mass Arrests Unconstitutional

Both at the Democratic convention in New York, and in Washington D.C., there have been incidents where crowds have been corralled into fences, and arrested, despite not even being ordered to disperse, based at most on things like vandalism committed by a handful of those involved. This is unconstitutional because it involves a warrantless arrest without probable cause that each person arrested committed a crime. Equally important, the fact that this is unconstitutional has been declared by a District of Columbia court to be a well established constitutional right which means that qualified immunity from suit does not apply to law enforcement officials who are sued for money damages for doing so.